One Salt Sea: An October Daye Novel

Quentin stayed at the apartment the entire time, leaving only when he had lessons on fighting technique or magical theory to attend. On those occasions, Etienne picked him up and brought him back, and he didn’t try to talk to me. Shadowed Hills was sunk deep in its own strange form of mourning—Raysel wasn’t dead, just sleeping . . . for now. Dugan’s elf-shot recipe contained a slow poison nasty enough to be one of Oleander’s creations. All we could do was hope that Walther would be able to counter it before it killed her.

I was dimly aware that I needed to talk to Sylvester about Rayseline. Her blood was a blend that could never have existed without magic; maybe my magic could help her. If her blood was less mixed-up, there was a chance she might be less mixed-up, too. In the meantime, Dianda was willing to place the blame for Margie’s death on Dugan alone. He mixed the elf-shot and put it in the hands of a woman who didn’t really understand the consequences of her actions. If everything came together right, maybe we could give Raysel another chance. As for Dugan . . .

Dugan was the Queen’s problem now, and she didn’t strike me as the kind of woman who would go easy on someone who’d been planning to depose her. I just hoped he was enjoying his stay in the Queen’s dungeon. Oberon knows, I was never going to forget my time there.

And Connor was still dead.

Gillian was going to live. I had to hold onto that. She was going to grow up, and become the amazing woman I knew she was destined to be. She was just going to do it without me. Eventually, growing up would turn into growing old . . . and I was no longer human enough to grow old with her.

Most changelings are abandoned by their pureblood parents when it becomes apparent that mortality is the one disease magic won’t cure. Changeling children are cute. Changeling adults are a constant reminder that anything that begins in the human world will eventually end there. I ran away from Amandine before she could start looking at me the way the other pureblood parents I knew looked at their own changeling children. Was I going to look at Gilly that way someday, when she was old and I wasn’t?

Maybe it was for the best that she didn’t want anything to do with me. All we could do—all we could ever have done—was break each other’s hearts.

And Connor was still dead.

Tybalt had taken his jacket with him when he carried Gillian back into the mortal world. I didn’t even realize it was gone until later, and then I was too busy grieving over the people I’d lost to really miss it. May brought it in with the mail one evening, hanging it on the inside of my bedroom door without a word. The leather smelled like pennyroyal and musk, the way it was supposed to. As for Tybalt himself, he didn’t appear, but this time, it didn’t feel like an abandonment. It felt like respect for my loss, and for the ones who hadn’t made it out alive.

And Connor was still dead.

I was curled under the covers on my bed, both cats and Spike nestled against me, when the door to my bedroom banged open. I stuck my head out, ready to tell May I didn’t want anything to eat, and stopped, briefly stunned by the sight of the Luidaeg standing at the foot of my bed.

“L-Luidaeg?”

“Good guess.” She leaned down and yanked the blankets away, throwing them onto the floor. “Get up and get dressed. We’re going out.”

Thank Maeve I don’t sleep naked. “I’m not going anywhere,” I informed her, trying to find the shards of my dignity. It wasn’t easy.

“Yes, you are,” she replied, voice calm. “Your only actual choice here is whether you’re doing it in socks and a nightshirt.”

I glared at her, taking note of her attire for the first time. She was wearing a long black skirt and a loose, somehow old-fashioned blouse in peacock blue. Her jewelry—necklace, earrings, even a matching bracelet—consisted of driftglass, seed pearls, and verdigris-tinted copper wire. I’d never seen her wearing jewelry before. She’d even taken the tape out of her hair, leaving it hanging loose in thick black waves.

“Get dressed,” she repeated.

“Fine,” I said sullenly, and rolled out of the bed. “Is this going to take long?”